1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates broadly to encoding computer display images for communications across a network. Specifically, the present invention relates to applying decomposition methods, compressing and transmitting images rendered by a processing system. More specifically, the present invention relates to display images in a frame buffer that are accessed, compressed and transmitted in priority sequence with the aid of multi-layer image decomposition performed by the processing system in conjunction with drawing command hints issued by a processor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Masked wavelets have been used to improve the compression of natural images with superimposed text or lines images, as might be characteristic of a computer display image that requires compression in order for it to be transmitted to a remote system. Generally, some form of pixel-level image filter is applied to the image in order for select areas of the image which are better suited to alternative encoding methods are designated as “don't care” regions, and these areas are excluded from the wavelet compression process.
However, pixel level pre-processing of an image to determine its characteristics prior to encoding is a processing intensive task, especially when performed by computing resources also tasked with maintaining a high quality user experience by servicing latency-sensitive functions such as image rendering and application software processing.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a system and method for improving the performance of image decomposition in such a manner as to overcome degradation in the user experience.